College Football Week 6 Preview: Huskers Look to Prove Legitimacy; Dawgs and Tide Tango in Tuscaloosa Once Again

Hi folks! Welcome to Week 6 of the 2026 CFB season.

If you heeded my advice last week, you really didn’t miss too much going on in the CFB world. The marquee SEC matchups ended in splatterings in Starkville and Columbia, and the Hawkeyes didn’t ultimately put up much of a fight against Jeremiah Smith and the Buckeyes. The best games of the weekend happened to be Pitt and VT on Friday night and Kentucky visiting South Carolina. Not really a must-see slate. So if you did go apple picking last Saturday, I hope that gained you some goodwill for the rest of the Fall because you’ll be needing it. Oh, I almost forgot. You did miss Michigan floundering in Minneapolis if that would have brought you some joy.

Moving along to Week 6, we’re almost at the halfway point of the 2026 campaign (sad) and while we’ve learned a bunch about teams like Texas and Clemson (trending in very different directions), the majority of teams we’re still mostly in the dark on. That’s why, similar to Day 3 at a golf tournament, I’m declaring Week 6 as Moving Week. Where contenders emerge triumphant and pretenders fall by the wayside.

Let’s look what we’ve got on tap for Moving Week across the college football landscape.

In the ACC, teams look to prove their merit as challengers to Miami and dark-horse candidates to make the CFP. Can Virginia Tech bounce back from a devastating loss and recover hopes for the season on a coast to coast trip to Cal? Can Pitt maintain performance after a season-ending injury to Mason Heintschel? And will Wake Forest and Duke continue being surprise top contenders as they both go on the road this week?

In the SEC, the question is can anyone emerge as a 4th team alongside Texas, Georgia, and Alabama. Missouri looks to build off their domination of the Gators last weekend while Florida, in turn, tries to wipe that game from their memory as they host a struggling South Carolina in the Swamp. Additionally, Ole Miss and LSU both take treacherous trips to Nashville and Lexington, respectively. Hopefully we start untangling this mess in the middle of the SEC this week.

And finally, the Big Ten slate is loaded with prove it or lose it games. USC visits State College for the whiteout game as Lincoln Riley tries to keep playoff hopes alive while Matt Campbell looks to salvage the season. Kirk Ferentz and Iowa try to right the ship in an always raucous Husky Stadium. And the top-flight games of the week reside in Lincoln and Eugene as upstarts Nebraska and UCLA look to stake their claim as legitimate challengers against projected conference frontrunners Indiana and Oregon.

Man, typing that all out makes me giddy for the Saturday ahead. We’re going to learn heaps about teams we know all too little about at this point in the year and finally start separating the teams who have skated by on soft schedules from real conference and playoff contenders. So strap in for Moving Week. I think the upsets are going to finally start rolling in.

Games of the Week

Indiana at Nebraska

Get your biscuits and gravy and high-octane coffee ready in Lincoln for an 11 AM local kick! Isn’t Big Noon Kickoff the best?! (Quick side note: I hear Nebraskans eat chili with cinnamon rolls? I can see it kind of working together, honestly.) Nebraska (5-0) welcomes Indiana (5-0) for a matchup to determine who will be the first bowl-eligible team in 2026. What universe are we living in that Huskers fans are more keyed in on that fact than Hoosiers fans? Both these teams so far haven’t really played anyone worth a bucket of nickels (excluding Indiana’s win over Northwestern, potentially). So how can we try to assess them accurately without quality samples to look at? Well, let’s look at both teams’ last games against similar competition: Nebraska at home against Maryland and Indiana on the road at Rutgers. Nebraska: in a one-score game headed into the 4th quarter and committed 16 penalties. Indiana: up 4 scores at halftime and committed 0 penalties. To me, we don’t need to make things much more complicated than that, but I’ll lay out how I think this game is going to go. Indiana will be the more physical and more disciplined team in this game. They will not beat themselves with penalties and turnovers. The Hoosiers will control the tempo from the start with the ground game, limiting Nebraska’s possessions early and forcing them into catch-up mode. Then will come the mistakes from Nebraska: penalties and turnovers further exacerbating the deficit. Unfortunately for Huskers fans, Saturday will be the return to normalcy that they fear it is: a 31st consecutive loss to a ranked team and a return to scrutinizing Matt Rhule.

Predictions

David Tomlinson: Indiana 38 – Nebraska 17

Cheech Jones: Indiana 34 – Nebraska 24

UCLA at Oregon

Could anyone have predicted preseason that the UCLA Bruins (4-0) would be the undefeated team in this matchup? First-year coach Bob Chesney’s squad has been a revelation so far this year. While they haven’t necessarily played the toughest opponents, they’ve got solid wins on the road at Cal and at Maryland, thumping the Terps 54-3 in their last outing. After that win, the comparisons of this team to Curt Cignetti’s 2024 Hoosiers started to be drawn even closer. And candidly, I am starting to see the signs! The Bruin offense has been uber-efficient with Nico Iamaleava at the helm and Wayne Knight skirting between the tackles and dominating on the ground. But if we’re making the comparison to 2024 Indiana, isn’t there one aspect of that team we’re forgetting? While they dominated subpar competition, like UCLA has done, they also got smushed when coming up against elite teams. I think the trip to the LA Coliseum got Oregon (3-1) back on the right track for the season, even despite the Dante Moore injury. Dan Lanning will have his guys focused and locked in every week going forward as they can’t afford another slip-up this early with a trip to Columbus still on the schedule. Expect the Bruins’ rushing attack to run into some resistance for the first time this year (unless Wayne Knight is too small that Oregon’s D-line can’t see him) which will lead to uncomfortable distances on third down for the UCLA offense all afternoon. Dylan Raiola should have no problem dissecting this defense with all the weapons he has around him, and he gets his first victory as the Ducks starting quarterback.

Predictions

David Tomlinson: Oregon 34 – UCLA 17

Cheech Jones: Oregon 38 – UCLA 35

LSU at Kentucky

So… LSU lost to Ole Miss who got stomped by Florida who then got run out of Columbia by Mizzou? Can the picture get any clearer with the perceived upper middle tier of the SEC? LSU (4-1) heads to Lexington Saturday night fresh off a bye (they played McNeese State) and ready to attack the meat of their league schedule with the same amount of mercy that Lane Kiffin gave those Cowboys last weekend. The Tigers have killed every team they’ve beaten so far this year with each victory coming by at least 4 scores. That includes wins over marquee programs Clemson and Texas A&M, which would have sounded much more impressive preseason. Kentucky (4-1) will at minimum be the 2nd best team LSU has faced so far. Will Stein’s Cats barely escaped South Carolina with their lives last week after a walk-off 2-point conversion gave them the win and also showed the resilience of this Kentucky team. The offense under Kenny Minchey has looked great, but the defense that you could hang your hat on at the height of the Mark Stoops era seems to be missing with this iteration. While the crowd should be electric and the Cats should be able to put up their fair share of points, I think Lane’s offense proves to be too potent and LSU dominates the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. The Tigers reassure their fans that they’re a legitimate contender to make the CFP.

Predictions

David Tomlinson: LSU 42 – Kentucky 27

Cheech Jones: LSU 30 – Kentucky 28

Georgia at Alabama

Well, this should be a scene for College Gameday tomorrow morning. Will this be the first time the show has been broadcast indoors? Someone let me know if it’s happened before in the comments below, please. Hurricane Isaias and the mean machine in the red and black both storm into town this week with cruel intentions for Tuscaloosa. Right now, the forecast shows the system should depart the area a few hours before kick, so I’m just going to assume that holds (I do think playing in hurricane conditions would give a significant edge to the Dawgs, though). I’m really hoping that weather is not a factor here for the safety of those involved and also for my personal interest in seeing these offenses ball out. Keelon Russell continued his tour of terror through the SEC last week, torching the Bulldogs for 3 touchdowns through the air and 1 on the ground. Gunner Stockton had a similar performance against Vanderbilt, setting up the undefeated showdown at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

I’ll admit: I’m historically bad on picking Georgia-Alabama matchups over the past decade, but I have to go off what I’ve seen so far this season. The Tide have looked like the more dominant team against better competition than Georgia so far, which is not what I expected preseason. Kalen Deboer has this team improving every quarter it seems as they keep getting closer to reaching their ceiling. These teams almost always play close and expect Saturday night to be no different. I like the Tide to weather both storms this weekend and stay undefeated.

Predictions

David Tomlinson: Alabama 31 – Georgia 30

Cheech Jones: Alabama 31 – Georgia 27

USC at Penn State

It’s white-out weekend in State College, Pennsylvania! (Sidebar: Why doesn’t the team also wear white at home for this game? Can someone make it make sense to me?) The Trojans (5-1) fly cross-country after pulling off a gritty win against Washington at the Coliseum last Saturday on the back of a late stand from Gary Patterson’s defense. While the Oregon game was disappointing on many, many levels, this is still a team with everything in front of them this season, especially if the defense can steadily improve. On the other side of the field, the Nittany Lions appear to be on the verge of dead-team territory yet again as they’ve blown a late lead to Wisconsin and been embarrassed in Evanston in consecutive weeks. Will their season get buried in primetime against a west coast team for the second year in a row? Truthfully, I don’t think Matt Campbell will let it happen. The narrative has been that Penn State is falling into the same routine as the Franklin-era, and I don’t see much truth in that. Expect a backs-to-the-wall effort on Saturday night from the Nittany Lions in a not pretty but cathartic victory. And yes, I’m still waiting for Lincoln Riley and USC to “prove it” to me.

Predictions

David Tomlinson: Penn State 27 – USC 24

Cheech Jones: Penn State 35 – USC 21

David’s Underdog of the Week

California 24 – Virginia Tech 20

James Franklin’s men have to head all the way out to Berkeley after a devastatingly close loss to Pitt in front of an electric crowd at Lane Stadium. I think the Hokies show up exhausted both from the travel and emotionally from last Friday night. Plus Virginia Tech couldn’t even scratch out a win against the Panthers with Mason Heintschel (RIP) sidelined mid-game. I know Cal has looked horrendous the last few weeks, but this is what the Bears do. They disappoint against subpar competition and then pull off a win that no one expects them to. JKS will do just enough to complement Tosh Lupoi’s defense holding the Hokies to 21 or less.

Cheech’s Underdog of the Week

Iowa 20 – Washington 13